Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary StudySadger, J.
Science
Sleep Walking and Moon Walking: A Medico-Literary Study
Sadger, J.
Psychoanalysis; Sleepwalking
It becomes clear now, likewise, why the patient climbs into the first
story, then recollects herself and seeks to go out at the gate. In her
seventh year she and her family had changed their abode and this had
been before in the first story but was now on an upper floor. She is
trying yet to climb into the mother's bed, this still remaining as a
fundamental motive. Only she is not seeking the bed where it stands at
the present time but where it stood in childhood, in the first story and
in another house. She goes, therefore, downstairs but remembers,
unconsciously of course, that this is not the right floor and wants now
to go out at the gate to find the home of her childhood. Later in the
country when she so thoroughly frightens her landlady and her daughter,
there she is also going to a woman she loves and she leaves the house
for this purpose and goes at least into the room that lies in the
direction of the house where the beloved lies. Later still she opens the
door wide in her sleep so that her lover can have free entrance.
We might also explain now in great part the sleep walking of the mother.
As far as I can discover, the mother also as a very small child lived in
another home than the one in which her sleep walking began. She ran
about her room at night and could not find her bed and felt around in
distress without coming upon the chamber, both of which stood in the
usual places. This may be explained by the fact that in phantasy she was
seeking the bed and chamber of her earliest childhood, which of course
stood elsewhere. Moreover she attained by her moaning the fulfilment of
her unconscious wish to be set by her mother upon the chamber and then
lifted into bed. The wanderings in the moonlight, after which likewise
she could not find her way back to bed, may be similarly explained,
though I learned only this much about her dancing in the moonlight,
that in her childhood she was very fond of dancing, which is also the
case with our patient. Perhaps she wished also to play elves in the
moonlight, according to poems or fairy tales or had, like her daughter,
earned the special love of her parents through her skill in dancing.
We are now at the chief problem. How is it then that the night's rest,
the guarding of which is always the goal of the dream, is motorially
broken through in sleep walking? There is first a special organic
disposition, which is absent from no sleep walker, a heightened motor
stimulability[11]. This appears clearly with children, and so for
example with our patient as a tendency to convulsive attacks, pavor
nocturnus and terrifying dreams, from which she starts up.
[11] Cf. with this Krafft-Ebing, _l. c._ "Slight convulsions or
cataleptic muscular rigidity sometimes precede the attacks."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account